Evaluation of Tualang honey as a supplement to fetal bovine serum in cell culture

• Published in: Food and chemical toxicology 2009-07, Vol.47 (7), p.1696-1702
• Main Authors: Kannan, Thirumulu Ponnuraj, Ali, Abdulaziz Qaid, Abdullah, Siti Fadilah, Ahmad, Azlina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: additives; Animals; apoptosis; bioactive properties; bioassays; Biological and medical sciences; blood serum; Cattle; cell culture; cell division; Cell Line; cell proliferation; Cell Proliferation - drug effects; Cells, Cultured; chromosome aberrations; Chromosome Aberrations - chemically induced; Coloring Agents; culture media; Culture Media - chemistry; Cytotoxicity; fetal bovine serum; fetus; Gene expression; Gene Expression - drug effects; Honey; Honey - analysis; human cell lines; Humans; Medical sciences; mitosis; Mitotic Index; MTT assay; Osteoblasts - drug effects; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; risk assessment; RNA - biosynthesis; RNA - isolation & purification; Serum - chemistry; Tetrazolium Salts; Thiazoles; toxicity testing; Toxicology; Tualang honey; validity
• ISSN: 0278-6915; 1873-6351
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2009.04.020

The aim of this study was to evaluate Tualang honey as a supplement to fetal bovine serum in cell cultures using MTT assay, chromosome aberration test and gene expression analyses. The MTT assay showed the highest percentage of cell proliferation (105.3% increment than control) of human osteoblast cell line (CRL 1543) in 0.0195% honey in Dulbecco’s modified eagle medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and 1% penicillin/streptomycin. There was enhanced cell proliferation corresponding to the decrease in concentrations of honey as indicated by the mitotic index values when the osteoblast cell line was incubated at 37 °C for 48 hours. There were no chromosome aberrations both in the honey treated as well as distilled water treated (negative control) cell lines. In the case of gene expression analyses, fibroblast cell lines (CCL 171) were treated with honey (0.0195%) for 24 and 48 hours separately. Though there was over expression for the bcl-xl gene at both 24 and 48 hours, under expression for bcl-xs gene at 24 hours and over expression at 48 hours and under expression for both c-myc and p53 genes at both 24 and 48 hours, none of them were statistically significant in altering the expression of mRNA.